


in all the times I suffered on the seas

by xahra99



Series: Odyssey [5]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Amputation, Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Gen, Graphic Description, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 12:44:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14189229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xahra99/pseuds/xahra99
Summary: 1715. Silver loses his leg, and Dr Howell discovers that Flint's more dependent on their quartermaster than meets the eye. Complete.Part five of an eight-part series





	in all the times I suffered on the seas

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so here it is, the fic series nobody asked for for a programme that finished last year because I like to watch entire series on Amazon rather than waiting for each episode to come out. Part five of eight Black Sails character studies/missing scenes. OKAY MASSIVE WARNING ON THIS ONE. I am a period surgery geek. One of my jobs involves performing surgery. I have performed amputations. There is lots of blood. If this puts you off, please click onto the next story! Incidentally, did you know that naval surgeons in the eighteenth century did not routinely stitch amputation wounds? And that it's highly unlikely that a ship the size of the Walrus would have had its own surgeon? But Howell is awesome.  
> The title quotes are from the Odyssey, from both Emily Wilson's and the Penguin translation (in one case both) because I'm a massive geek.

“That was the most heartrending sight I saw, in all the times I suffered on the seas.”-The Odyssey.

 

Silver loses his leg.

 

Howell: “If it doesn’t come off quickly, you won’t make it three days.”

Silver: “Did you not fucking hear me! I said I do not want this!”

Howell: “You’ll die. This way, there’s a very good chance to prevent it.”

 

_Off Charlestown, 1715._

 

Howell does not like John Silver.

Silver is a weasel who would say anything to save his own skin. He’s the last person Howell would expect to risk his life for Flint’s crew. So when he hears Silver’s been injured, the first thing Howell does is ask himself what angle the cook’s playing.

That question dies upon his lips as Billy drags Silver through the door. Blood stains the deck behind them. Howell clears the table with a sweep of his arm and shouts at the crew to bring Silver quickly as tankards clatter to the floor.

“It’ll be all right,” he lies, calling for rum as he cuts off Silver’s boot. He unlaces the leather to expose the leg. There is a collective intake of breath as every man in the room except Silver sees what’s underneath. For a moment, the only sound in the cabin is Silver’s fast breathing.

“Come on.” Silver does his best to sound light-hearted. It’s a credible attempt. “Come on.  I’m sure you’ve all seen worse.”

Howell has, but not on any living man. He says, “I’ll do what I can,” which is the truth but not what Silver wants to hear.

As he readies his instruments he tells Silver what to expect. The cook protests. “I don’t want this!” he cries, fear and helplessness warring in his eyes. Howell thinks cynically that it’s perhaps the only time in his life the man has told the truth.  Illness and injury have a way of doing that to a man. Howell has seen pirates who would laugh at a drowning child grow pale when faced with the prospect of their own mortality. 

Muldoon tells Silver it will be all right, but Howell cannot bring himself to lie again. He wraps a tourniquet round Silver’s thigh and readies his curved knife.

Silver screams hoarsely as Howell slices down. The Spanish warship’s cannons fire. The boat rocks and Howell’s first cut goes awry. He curses, makes another. Howell saws as Silver shouts himself silent. The cannons roar. He’s up to his elbows in blood within moments as he pulls up Silver’s flesh to bare the bones. Muscle tears like raw beef. Eventually Silver passes out, and after that it goes easier on everyone.

He’s wrapping Silver’s stump in bandages by the time the battle’s over. The Spanish galleon surges as her sails catch the wind. Howell catches himself against the table, steadying his hands as Silver shifts restlessly. The crew drift off one by one, but Muldoon lingers. “Will he live?”

Howell loosens the tourniquet cautiously, waiting for blood to flower on the cloth. A drop seeps through, flows, and stops. Howell relaxes. He pats Silver’s leg as if the limb was an obedient horse. “There’s nothing else that can be done.”

He expects Muldoon to leave. The gunner stays. “Did you hear what happened?” he asks Howell.

“Some,” says Howell. He isn’t sure how of it he much he believes.

Muldoon regards Silver’s prone form with respect. “He had a chance to leave. Except he didn’t. Stole the keys to the captain’s cabin so we could storm the decks. Who’d have thought he had it in him?”

Howell knows exactly what Silver has in him. Half of it stains the planks at their feet. He nods. Muldoon looks as if he’d like to linger, but Flint shouts from the quarterdeck “All hands!” and the gunner’s gaze goes to the door.

“You go,” Howell says as he sluices Silver’s blood from his hands. “I’ll stay with him.”

Muldoon spares Silver one last look before he rushes off. The guns have ceased. The cabin is quiet now the galleon is under way, a pocket of peace amongst the organized chaos that is a ship under sail.

Howell lays a hand on Silver’s throat to check his pulse. It’s fast and thread. Silver’s eyes are glazed, his forehead bathed in clammy sweat. Howell squeezes out a rag and mops his forehead with seawater. He would prefer to bathe the man in brine. Wounded men treated in this way often do better than those who are not. He decides to wait, because he’s not sure Silver will live through it.

He checks the bandages again. Blood stains the rags wrapped around Silver’s stump, but there is not too much, not to Howell’s experienced eye. Silver will live, at least for now.

Howell sits down heavily and helps himself to what’s left of Silver’s rum. 

He has never liked surgery.

The Caribbean is not a healthy place. Some men die of sickness, of wound rot and fever, the pox and the clap, which spare few and are nobody’s fault. Others die from wounds, from gunpowder and shot, from cannonballs, and those deaths are the fault of the man who dealt the mortal blow.  Men fall from the rigging or are knifed in tavern fights, and those are accidents. Howell does his best in all cases and counts himself lucky, but surgery is an entirely different story.

Howell is good at surgery. He’s learned how to be quick, and half of his patients survive. But he’s never liked it, because if Silver dies now, after Howell’s operation, it will be his fault. And the surgeon would rather not have Silver’s blood on his hands.

He tips back the bottle and pours more liquor down his throat. When he looks up he sees Flint standing in the doorway. The captain is dressed in his customary black. His face is pale, gaunt, and streaked with blood, and for a moment Howell thinks wildly that Death himself has visited his patient. He controls himself with an effort and carefully sets the bottle aside.

Flint lifts the blanket that Howell has thrown over Silver and stares down at the bandages. “Amputation? Was there nothing else that you could do?”

A wave of irritation sweeps across Howell.  “I am aware that the virtues of amputation are a matter of debate,” he says. “Why fight in the first place to save a man who will most likely die or else live on a cripple? Why put him through that torture? Isn’t it easier to cut his throat and spend your time on someone who might live? I have asked myself these questions many times. And when I am through asking questions I grit my teeth and sharpen my blade and hope for the best because there is nothing else that I can do. Perhaps you should address your questions to Vane’s quartermaster, sir. He didn’t leave me with much choice.”

Flint drapes the blanket back over Silver and raises one eyebrows at Howell.  The silence drags out between them until Flint says, “Very well,” and Howell lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“You did a better job than I did on poor Randall,” says Flint.

“I should hope so, sir.” says Howell.

Flint nods to Silver’s prone form. “What d’ you think of him? Think he’ll do?”

Howell shrugs. “If he was a horse, I’d shoot him.”

“An unusual analogy,” Flint says.

“I used to be a horse doctor,” Howell tells him. “When the _Royal Charles_ was captured they shot the old surgeon. I was the man best qualified for the job.”

Flint frowns. “I thought you were a Navy man.”

“Afraid not.” Howell says shortly. The assumption makes him feel painfully inferior. He can take a leg faster than any Navy surgeon-he’s had plenty of practice, after all-and though he has sworn no oath he takes pride in all his work. He nods at Silver and changes the subject. “Should he survive, I hope he will be paid.”

Flint nods, though he gives Howell a sharp look that tells the surgeon he knows what he’s doing. “Eight hundred dollars from the public fund. It’s in the articles.”

Eight hundred dollars would be several years of wages for a skilled artisan, but it is no replacement for a leg. “I’ll let him know.”

“Very well.” Flint says. His eyes flit around the room, assessing each detail; the bloodstained rags, the pail of dirty water, the scarred and battered bench that serves as Howell’s operating table. “Send him to my cabin. You as well.” He watches Silver as if he is the coins he’s named for. “Mr. Silver has value to me. I should hate to lose him now.”

Howell nods. He expects Flint to assign a couple of crew members to carry him, but to his surprise Flint just walks round to the base of the table and says “You take his shoulders. I’ll take his legs.”

They shift Silver with some awkwardness, though to Howell’s surprise and profound gratitude the cook stays unconscious throughout. Howell settles Silver in Flint’s hanging bed, where he sleeps restlessly, jerking and twitching and muttering soft words beneath his breath. Howell gets water ready for when Silver wakes and inspects the wound. It’s not as neat as he would like. Amputations must be done in haste and the skin is already reddening around the cut. He thinks it will heal-if Silver survives.

“Make him a crutch,” Flint says from the doorway. “We all need to lean on something solid, Mr. Howell.” 

He disappears. Howell sits down beside Silver’s bed and shakes his head.

He knows that Silver will live, though he hasn't been sure of it until this moment. He will survive because of Flint.

Because Flint wills it so.

***

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Why not check out some of my other finely-crafted fics? Next up: Abigail confronts Flint about her father's death.


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